


black and blue (fight on through)

by ziskandra



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Pining, Tending to injuries, Unresolved Sexual Tension, post ME1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziskandra/pseuds/ziskandra
Summary: Garrus would follow Shepard into dark space itself if she commanded it. She had survived where he thought she could not.After the Battle of the Citadel, Garrus goes to say goodbye to Shepard.She inadvertently promises him a future instead.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70
Collections: Writing Rainbow Black





	black and blue (fight on through)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cricket_aria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/gifts).



Garrus shouldn’t feel this way about a human. Garrus certainly shouldn’t feel this way about a _superior officer_. Yet, whenever he fights beside Shepard, he can’t help but be drawn to the fluid grace with which her body moves, the speed and dexterity masking the strength of her muscles, the precision of her trigger finger.

Humans are soft and squishy, especially when compared to turians. Humans are always hurting themselves in the strangest ways. Injuries that don’t even break the skin can sometimes burst their blood vessels.

With all that in mind, Garrus almost doesn’t expect Shepard to survive the carnage that awaits them at the end of the battle at the Citadel. He’s lucky not to get crushed himself: even though he might have a better fighting chance than Shepard, he’s still only mortal. Vulnerable. With every moment that passes his hopes of seeing her step out of that wreckage subside.

He’s almost given up, accepted her loss, when she steps out of the rubble, battered and bruised but _alive_. Even with her armour smouldering in places he didn’t know existed, the commander is radiant. Her smile could power the entire Citadel. Only mere months ago he’d thought it strange that humans bared their teeth in joy. He knows better now.

The expression on her face fills with him the sort of warmth that suffuses through his entire body, including parts that he probably he shouldn’t be thinking about right now. He doesn’t know what to think about that.

Only that he, well, shouldn’t be thinking about _that_.

*

He doesn’t mean to get a quiet moment with her alone. Well, not intentionally. There’s some subconscious part of him that seeks it out, craves it. Fears that this might be his last opportunity to talk to her, really talk to her. He paces up and down outside her quarters, half-hoping that the entrance will slide open in front of him so he doesn’t have to make the first move. His hopes go unanswered so instead he steels himself before rapping his talons against the door, old-school.

Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe she’s inside. Maybe she’s sleeping. Maybe she’s busy. Maybe she’s _busy_. He’s almost talked himself out of whatever he’s doing here when he hears the hiss of the lock disengaging and Shepard is standing right _there_.

It’s clear he’s disturbed her in the middle of something. Her hair is dishevelled, sticking out at all sorts of unfamiliar angles. He’s no expert on human grooming behaviours but he’s certain none of the ones on this ship have ever quite worn it like that before. One of the thin straps of the garment she wears on the upper half of her body is slipping down her shoulder. He reigns in the impulse to reach out and push it back into position.

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her so uncovered before. Up close, he can see how the battle has mottled her skin. The bruises bloom like flowers, spreading outwards from their point of impact. He wants to touch them. Knows that he probably shouldn’t.

Shepard clears her throat.

 _Shit_. He’s staring. 

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Shepard tells him, leaning against the doorframe, one arm stretched upwards and the other at her hip. There’s something suspiciously airy about the way she says it, but Garrus is in no mind to examine her words further.

He fumbles for the proper response. “I can go,” he says, wincing at the way his flanging betrays his disappointment. Humans aren’t good at picking up on those sort of cues, though, or so he’s been told.

He probably _should_ go. But he doesn’t.

“No, no, it’s good timing,” Shepard says, inviting him inside with a wave of her hand. As he steps across the threshold his heart starts strumming like it does at the beginning of battle, adrenaline roaring through blood. She bares her teeth in that smile again and he wants to pin her down against the bed and see how quickly she can throw him off. Get him off.

His brain is scrambling.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” he starts, but Shepard cuts him off as she sits down on the bed. There’s a tub of some sort of tacky ointment in her hands. He’s only just noticed it.

“I could use some help, actually.” She bites her lip, looks to the side. The bottom of her top rides up slightly as she does so; he can see the bruises on her hip bone. A memory from the fight flashes through his mind: Shepard, silent and deadly, sneaking through a crowd of geth, only to get knocked off balance at the very last moment.

He is a soldier. A warrior. He shouldn’t be getting distracted.

Yet here he is. 

“Uh.” _That’s not even a word, Garrus!_

Thankfully, Shepard doesn’t seem to expect any sort of coherent response, instead offering him the tub. “There’s some bruises on my back that I can’t quite reach.”

His hand curls around the offered tub, and there’s a moment where he wonders if he’d heard her correctly. Then she flops down face-first on the bed with an expectant wriggle, rolling up her top and … well. He has reach, at the very least.

This container is clearly not meant for turian hands, but there’s an applicator. Small mercies. He inelegantly smears some cream on the end of the stick and leans over Shepard to examine her back. The bruising is less evident there, it’s mostly her limbs which are covered with the black and blue splotches from her broken capillaries. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing but decides to simply apply the ointment on any part of her skin that looks discoloured from the rest.

“Like this?” he asks, and is it his imagination or does Shepard’s breath hitch? It must be, or maybe the behaviour has a different implication in human physiology.

“Yeah,” she assures him, voice lower than her usual cant. “You’re doing great.”

His newfound role at least gives him the chance to examine Shepard’s bruises. Some of them have already started to fade, yellow and grey instead of black and blue. It’s hard, so much harder, to reign in his impulses now. He gently presses a knuckle against one of the few bruises on Shepard’s back; she lets out a hiss of surprise and pain. “Oops, sorry,” he says, while not entirely sure what he expected. The brief distraction from thinking about things he really shouldn’t be dwelling upon allows him to come up with some sort of believable reason for loitering outside her quarters. “Where are you off to next?” It’s not the segue he’d been hoping for, but he’d take it.

Shepard sighs, pressing her front more firmly against the mattress. “The Council would have me staying nearby, helping with the reconstruction efforts.”

Garrus’s vocal cords flange in amusement. “And what would Commander Shepard have herself doing?” he asks, surprised by the ease with which he asks the question. That’s one of the things he’s always liked about Shepard. She’s easy to talk to. She doesn’t feel like just a commanding officer.

She feels like a friend. 

“You know what I’m going to do, Garrus. I’m going to make sure there’s no way in hell that the Reaper threat can return.” Her hand reaches behind herself, applies light pressure to Garrus’s wrist. Pushing him away. _That’s enough_. He puts the lid back on the tub. The sting of rejection doesn’t have time to settle in before she continues. “And that’s what I’ve been meaning to ask you. “What are you planning on doing next?”

At first, he’s surprised, because he hadn’t expected her to care. But mostly, he’s confused, because truth be told, he’s still not sure. Return to C-Sec? Could he go back to that sort of life after everything he had experienced at Shepard’s side? Perhaps there was some merit to the idea of going through the Spectre selection process after all.

Shepard’s hand gives his a gentle squeeze. He looks down in surprise; there fingers are almost interlaced. “If you’d rather stay,” she says, “then I can make arrangements. Get you a stipend out of the cross-cultural-understanding budget.” Her eyes twinkle.

“Yeah,” Garrus answers slowly. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.” The cloud of boyish arousal with which he had initially entered Shepard’s quarters fades away to something that he cannot quite name. Acceptance, but not quite. Not even the bait of _cross-cultural-understanding_ can distract him now.

Maybe it’s the realisation that this isn’t the last ever chance he’ll get to make a move. As if he was ever going to do such a thing in the first place. She’s a human. A commanding officer.

It’s not the same as if they were on a solely turian ship. He reminds himself to make some extranet searches later.

“You don’t have to answer now,” Shepard says. “Think about it. I’m not going anywhere.” A laugh, light and breezy. “Except the entire galaxy, perhaps!”

She withdraws her hand. It feels like loss.

In that moment, he knows he would follow her into dark space itself if she commanded it. She had survived where he thought she could not.

By her side, he feels invincible.


End file.
